Sports
Hamilton dining options insufficient for nutrition needs of athletes
By Erich Wohl ’18
December 1, 2016
Tags sports
The food offered by Bon Appétit is not sufficient in quantity or quality for Hamilton’s varsity athletes. Hamilton student-athletes work very hard during practice and often end their night with a scarce food selection. While I understand that Bon Appétit tries hard and many of the employees are overworked, there are clear actions that the Bon Appétit administration in collaboration with Hamilton can take to improve everyone’s dining experience.
Hamilton’s student-athletes do serious damage to their bodies during practices to optimize their performance. Athletes doing cardio-based sports can burn upwards of 2,000 calories in a single workout. Athletes doing contact sports will often do serious damage to their muscles during practice and require appropriate nutrition in order to repair their muscles. After practice, there is often limited food at commons.
For example, by 7:00 p.m. Commons almost always runs out of whole milk which is a critical recovery food, containing necessary regenerative proteins such as whey and casein. Whole milk also has copious amounts of all eight amino acids allowing your body to immediately use it for muscle repair.
Both dining halls also seriously lack healthy Omega 3 fats which are necessary for recovery. These fats protect your essential organs and reduce muscle soreness. They include foods such as avocado, hummus, olive oil and peanut butter. The first two are rarely available and the second two are available in deceiving fashion. Both dining halls interchangeably present olive oil and canola oil as salad dressing despite olive oil being a much healthier alternative. The dressings are also not labeled making it hard to tell what you’re getting. The peanut butter at dining halls is usually Skippy or Jif, both hydrogenated brand names that are nutritionally closer to a Twinkie than to a peanut. This can easily be rectified by purchasing different brands which are around the same price.
Nutritious food options are especially scarce for the football team which often has practices that end close to the closing of Commons. While the Diner is an option, the quantity of food is often not sufficient after a hard fought practice and nutritionally, Diner food isn’t always the best. Even cutlery is often gone by the time the team finishes practice. Pragmatically, Commons should at least be able to provide latecomers with dining utensils. The dining halls fail to accommodate those who aren’t present during high-volume hours.
Athletes who remain on campus over break for their sport have to experience limited quantity and quality of foods. Limited dining hours force coaches to work their schedule in unfavorable ways so athletes have time to eat. The food selection often doesn’t include milk or red meat and has limited gluten free, vegetarian and vegan options. Bon Appétit should make more of an effort to include these things. Despite having fewer students on campus, Bon Appétit still receives compensation for preparing meals; their quality should not decline just because there are fewer students on campus.
To fix this issue, I think the dining halls should extend their hours such that Commons is open until at least 10:00 p.m. every day. Additionally, McEwen dining hall should be open on the weekends for at least brunch so athletes who complete weekend competitions don’t have to work with the dregs of what is seemingly already leftover food.
The Hamilton community is frequently upset with Bon Appétit’s service but the problem is especially noticeable for athletes who often have to eat at obscure times. When athletes can’t recover properly due to a lack of nutrition, Hamilton has to step up its game.